Kumar’s BJP Tie-Up Threatens Secular Image

Nitish Kumar, Bihar’s chief minister, is a leader who champions his party’s secular image but is engaged in an uneasy alliance with a Hindu nationalist party.

Mr. Kumar has depended on an electoral alliance with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to rule in the state. When the BJP was last in control of the national government, until 2004, Mr. Kumar was federal railways minister.

But now, ahead of nationwide polls next year, Mr. Kumar and his Janata Dal (United) party are betting they can break away from the BJP and stay in control of Bihar.

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Mr. Kumar is concerned the BJP will select Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate for the national elections. Mr. Modi is a conservative Hindu leader, and the JD(U) is worried his candidature may put off Muslim voters, who make up 15% of voters in Bihar.

A loss of Muslim votes could possibly open the way for other players such as the Rashtriya Janata Dal, led by former Bihar chief minister, Lalu Prasad Yadav, and the national ruling Congress party – routed in the last state elections – to regain some ground.

Mr. Modi denies wrongdoing and the BJP responded in a statement rejecting “unfounded inferences” against the Gujarat chief minister.

It’s all shadow-boxing for now. Mr. Kumar could well remain in the BJP’s alliance even if Mr. Modi becomes prime minister. He’ll have to work out whether by leaving the BJP he’ll lose Hindu votes in the state, imperiling his majority when Bihar goes to the polls in 2015. He’s unlikely to want to join the Congress-led coalition, which has been beset by a number of corruption scandals since coming to national power in 2004. But he also doesn’t want to risk alienating Muslim voters and tarnishing his party’s secular credentials.

It makes for a tough environment for Mr. Kumar, 62 years old, who has ruled Bihar since 2005.

“He is immensely conscious of his secular and clean image,” said Rajesh Chakraborty, a Hyderabad-based professor at the Indian School of Business, who has written a book on the progress in Bihar since Mr. Kumar took over.

Bihar, with a population of 104 million people, and synonymous with poverty, low levels of literacy, crime, corruption, rickety infrastructure and unemployment, has taken initial steps towards economic development under Mr. Kumar. Local government figures show the eastern Indian state’s gross domestic product grew at an annual average of almost 12% over the five years to March 2012, far above the national average of 7.9% in the same period.

Mr. Kumar has used central government funds to bolster the state’s infrastructure, which has attracted investment, especially in agriculture. He’s improved health care and education in the state. More recently, manufacturing and tourism also has picked up.

Development has helped Mr. Kumar stay in power. But “that may not work that well in 2014 or 2015, especially as anti-incumbency is bound to set in and meeting people’s lofty expectations are tough,” said Sachidanand Sharma, head of political science at Patna University, the largest college in the state.

Born in Bakhtiarpur, a town in the state, Mr. Kumar won his first election – to Bihar’s assembly – in 1985 as an independent. Since then, he has won six elections to the lower house of India’s Parliament between 1989 and 2004, and twice to the Bihar assembly, in 2005 and 2010.

Mr. Kumar graduated from the Bihar College of Engineering in Patna, now called the National Institute of Technology, He came into party politics in 1989, joining the Janata Dal, whose members included his current rival Lalu Prasad Yadav. A split with Mr. Yadav saw Mr. Kumar forming the Samata Party in 1994, which was subsequently merged with the JD(U) in 2003.

Since 1990, he has had stints as federal minister for agriculture, railways and transport at various times.

But it was during Mr. Kumar’s time at the helm of Indian railways, during the BJP administration in the early 2000s, that he gained an image as an able administrator, said Mr. Chakraborty.

He allowed passengers to buy tickets on the Internet and brought in a system of booking for last minute travelers called “tatkal,” which has become popular.

His move to resign as railway minister in 1999, during a previous administration, after a train accident in Assam state which killed about 200 people “enhanced his image as a man of integrity,” said Mr. Chakraborty.

Since taking control of Bihar, Mr. Kumar’s administration has improved law and order in the state, including curbing kidnappings for ransom. He also acted to ensure teachers turned up to classes at government schools.

The government improved healthcare by ensuring free medicines to the poor and enforcing doctor attendance at state-run clinics. It also gave incentives such as cash to purchase bicycles to girls who agreed to continue their education.

“His style of functioning — minimizing the role of ministers, empowering officials and constant monitoring — has ensured development work gets done,” Mr. Chakraborty said. “Critics, especially ministers don’t like it, and term his style as dictatorial.”

Attempts to reach Mr. Kumar were not successful.

But it wasn’t just development that kept him in power. Mr. Kumar has been deft at playing the state’s vote banks, analysts say. It was the backing from Muslims, upper-caste Hindus and poorer sections of society that ensured the JD(U)-BJP combine a sweeping victory in 2010 elections, said Mr. Sharma of Patna University.

The Muslim community has backed the Bihar chief minister solidly since 2010 after the JD(U) leader, within a year of taking over in 2005, reopened several cases related to the 1989 communal riots in the state which had left over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead.

“The cases have led to some convictions while the state has paid out compensations as well,” Mr. Sharma said.

Saidul Islam, a 38-year carpenter in Bihar’s capital Patna, said that Mr. Kumar has done more to “heal the injuries of Muslims” in the last few years than any other political party. “We are with him.”

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